Alum pays $100,000 to remodel local's house at GSC

[hoosier]

Giving back to the frat
Think "Animal House" meets "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."

Charlie Kleman, a top executive with women's clothing retailer Chico's, is paying $100,000 out of his own pocket to renovate the current Delta Kappa Tau house at Geneseo State College.

The firm that builds new Chico's stores did most of the work in the past month, including a new roof, new windows, wiring, kitchen cabinets and appliances.

"Flat out, this is the greatest thing to happen to the fraternity since 1871," the year of the fraternity's founding, said Ryan DiMillo, the DK president.

Kleman holds fond memories of his days at the Geneseo fraternity in the 1970s.

He and his fraternity brothers lived in a house that looked like a disaster area, until the landlord booted them out.

"It's a pretty wild fraternity," he said.

But Kleman said he's not worried about today's frat boys trashing the remodeled house. They've agreed to hold the wild parties in the basement, and he plans to occasionally check in on the place.